The early church was made up of the first and second generation of disciples just after Jesus. These are the folks who walked and talked with Jesus. And it’s important to know what they did. But we’re not in exactly the same position that they are in.
Instead, let me suggest that if you are a Western Christian, you consider reading everything you can about the Celts. (Come to think of it, it works for Chinese Christians to.)
The Celtic Christians of about the 500s were in this position: Christianity had moved from persecution to toleration to enshrinement as the state religion – and then endured the fall of Rome. Justinian’s Plague had wiped out nearly half of Europe’s population. The land was dirt poor and the people starving, barely surviving. Culture had been wiped out by waves of invaders. There were huge numbers of people that were uneducated and destroying what culture remained of Rome.
Into this situation came the wandering Celts who established “centers of blessing” (the monasteries) that reached out in very practical ways to their neighbors. They no longer relied upon the state. The spoke out against political injustice. They made disciples. They provided education. They refarmed all of Europe.
The impact the Celts made in this “post modern” (at the time) period was incalculable. In fact the argument can be made that because of their efforts, northern Europe’s population boom outstripped the south so that by the time of Martin Luther the north outnumbered the south by 4 to 1. Their efforts set the stage for the Reformation.
It’s an example to dig into. Lots of good books too: How the Irish Saved Civilization, The Celtic Way of Evangelism, and Justinian’s Flea for starters.
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It’s my understanding that, unlike their brothers and sisters closer to Rome, the Celtic church had married priests and did the services in the language of the people just like the Eastern church did (Constantinople, Antioch, etc.). Unfortunately, that all changed after the Norman invasion in 1066.
In my experience the Fellowship of Ailbe’s ministry has helped me sort through the Celtic legacy to understand what I might profitably apply from it. There are some things modern evangelicals will not embrace fully but there is much more that would be a blessing to us.
The Celtic love for art, psalms, God’s Law, and the Gospels and their missionary practices are well worth emulating!
http://Ailbe.org
Interesting post and thought provoking. I have read two of the books recommended and can vouch that they are both worth the effort. Too often, there is a tendency to idolize the first century church as if it had no problems when in point of fact, all the evidence of the New Testament letters is that it was one messed up collection of churches.
Here’s my caution. If we don’t remain keen, overwhelmingly biblical in our studies of how to “do church”, if we begin to overemphasize any other generation or any other model or any other paradigm than the first century, we begin to lose the only inspired vision of what the church should be.
Read of the Celts. Read of the Moravians. Read the Reformers. But center every study against the backdrop of the Scripture. Compare every tactic, every approach to an increasingly robust understanding of what Jesus, Paul and the apostles are aiming at in the Scripture.
I agree. We must evaluate all of our structures and the outcome of our efforts by what the Bible says our “communities of love” should be like. However, I also think different times, situations and cultures may require different structures and forms. The early church had a form that was uniquely suited to the context of their times (e.g. persecution); we can see this form works well in, for example, situations of persecution and oppression (such as is found in current restrictive nations). In other countries in other situations, other forms (that maintain the same Biblical norms) may be more suitable. At all times we must certainly judge the structure by the Biblical commands and norms of loving God and each other, loving non-Christians & enemies, proclaiming the Good News & making disciples, etc.
Agreed.
Have been researching recently the church in the sub-Roman period in my part of Britain. Monasticism in that context appeared to be something of a church reform and mission movement, rather than an institutional phenomenon.
I am writing a book entitled The Future of the Worldwide Church. One section covers world empires and the spread of Christianity, and I make much of the contribution of the Celts. They were, in fact, the first major cross-cultural missions movement. Patrick’s enslavement by Gaelic-speaking Irish raiders forced him to learn the language of his captors and this became his preaching and teaching medium when he returned as a missionary. He passed on that missiological insight to his successors, and it was the Celts who were the true evangelizers of a changed Europe. Incidentally the chain reaction that led to the destruction of the Roman empire was the explosion of super-volcano Taupo in New Zealand and subsequent depopulating global famines. The Latin Church sought to “civilize” the invading desperate, famine ravaged barbarians and then speak of Christianity. The Celts did the opposite, they learned local languages, evangelized and when they made disciples, they educated them so that they could access the rich resources of literature and the Scriptures in Greek and Latin. The tragedy of the Celtic Church was its political and then spiritual eclipse by the power of the state-oriented Catholic Church. However the Celtic Christian themes still permeate the values of Anglo-Celtic Christianity—hymnody, love for nature (the Celtic cross has a circle indicating the earth as part of God’s concern—and theirs— for caring for nature and need for a personal faith being a few.
Patrick
I am so glad to hear that you have included this kind of detail and am eagerly looking forward to the book’s completion. But at least now I have a new line of reading. I had read before mostly about the Krakatoa catastrophe theory.
Justin
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